Herbert Smith Freehills has advised on a US$300 million bond offering by India’s largest automobile manufacturer, Tata Motors Ltd. The Mumbai-based company’s latest offering marks its first U.S. dollar denominated bond issuance in the international debt capital markets.
Herbert Smith Freehills acted as sole international counsel to ANZ, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citigroup and HSBC as joint lead managers for the offering. In addition, a separate Herbert Smith Freehills team based in Hong Kong advised Citicorp as trustee for the bond issue.
The US$300,000,000 5.75% notes due 2021, were issued by TML Holdings Pte Ltd, the Singapore-based wholly-owned subsidiary of Tata Motors which is the holding company for Jaguar Land Rover Automotive plc.
The Herbert Smith Freehills team on the deal was led by Singapore-based partner Philip Lee, who was assisted by senior associate Gareth Deiner and associate Nupur Kant. The same team also advised the joint lead managers for Tata Motors’ S$350 million 4.25% senior notes due 2018, issued in May last year. The Herbert Smith Freehills team advising the trustee was led by Hong Kong-based partner Alexander Aitken and of counsel Etelka Bogardi.
Philip commented:
“We are delighted to have once again advised the joint lead managers on this important transaction for the Tata Motors group in the Eurodollar market, following on their successful and ground-breaking debt offering in the Singapore dollar market last year. Through this engagement, we demonstrated our seamless execution capabilities in the debt capital markets space, and certainly also our ability to support issuers and the banks that want to take advantage of positive market conditions quickly.”
